Pizza Hut Classic Offering Plenty Of Talent

When Pizza Hut failed to get any of the always-powerful, Miami-area teams for its soccer classic this year it was feared the quality of the tournament would nose dive.

But Pizza Hut officials did well in getting some of the top talent in the state.

Of the 16 teams, 12 are either ranked or among those receiving votes in the Class AAA or Class AAAA polls.

In this week's rankings Longwood Lyman owns the fifth spot in the Class AAAA poll while other ranked teams from the tournament are Jacksonville Terry Parker (ninth) and Winter Garden West Orange (10th).

Other Class AAAA teams that earned votes for the poll and are entered in the Pizza Hut tournament are Casselberry Lake Howell, Altamonte Springs Lake Brantley and Lake Mary.

At Bishop Moore the winner of the Seabreeze-Bishop Moore game meets the St. Petersburg Seminole-Lake Howell winner at noon. The losers of those games play at 2 p.m. The Lake Mary-Merritt Island winner faces the Terry Parker-Orlando Evans winner at 4 p.m. and the losers play at 6 p.m.

At Lake Brantley the Lyman-Orlando Colonial winner plays the West Orange- Winter Park winner at noon and the losers play at 2 p.m. The Jesuit-Tarpon Springs winner plays the Lake Brantley-Tampa Leto winner at 4 p.m. and the losers vie at 6 p.m.

Ray Sandidge has seen his Lyman team vault past a pair of Seminole County rivals and into the Class AAAA poll's top 10.

The Greyhounds are led by the powerful one-two offensive punch of Brian Ocasek and Pat Howard along with the quick feet of Gerald Mitchell.

Until last week Lake Brantley and Casselberry Lake Howell were among the top 10.

But Sandidge's Greyhounds tied Lake Brantley (2-2) by scoring a goal in the final seconds, then upset Lake Howell, 3-2.

Not only did that cause the Greyhound stock to rise, but it made that of the Patriots and Silver Hawks fall.

''We've got the offensive punch, there's no doubt about that,' Sandidge said. ''If we score a few goals we feel we can win.''

Lake Howell Coach Norm Wight explained why his Silver Hawk team has so much trouble with Oviedo.

''It's tough playing especially good against the schools who don't have the real strong team,'' Wight said. ''First they tend to play a more defensive style and also your team often finds it difficult to really get into the game. ''You'll find that more and more good teams having trouble with the poorer teams,'' Wight added. ''But Oviedo's program is really coming along fine. They also play us strong because of the two schools being so close to one another and the players know each other so well.''

Both games with Oviedo found the talent-rich Silver Hawks being held scoreless in the first half. It took a pair of scores by Eric Reesman within a minute to pull out a 2-1 victory. In the second meeting Lake Howell got going late but rolled to a 5-0 victory.

The Lyman-Bishop Moore girls soccer game has been changed to 10 a.m. Saturday. Lyman's girls will take a 31-match winning streak into the meeting. Tom Barnes gave his Lyman girls three days off, but they resumed practice Thursday.

''We want to make certain we are in top condition for the Burger King Tournament,'' Barnes said. ''We are looking forward to it.''